New & Noteworthy: Star Wars trailers; Cookie security risk; vScan discontinued; more

Star Wars trailers As noted on this page, a new Star Wars Episode II Internet Preview is being released today. But you will need the Star Wars Episode I DVD to access it (which leads us to believe you may not be able to access it on a Mac; see previous coverage). However, a new "Full Teaser Trailer" will be released next week in theaters and will also be available from Apple's site.

Cookie security risk in Explorer A Microsoft Security Bulletin titled "Cookie Data in IE Can Be Exposed or Altered Through Script Injection" warns "It is possible to craft a URL that can allow sites to gain unauthorized access to user's cookies and potentially modify the values contained in them. Because some web sites store sensitive information in a user's cookies, it is also possible that personal information could be exposed. Microsoft is preparing a patch for this issue, but in the meantime customers can protect their systems by disabling active scripting." Although not clearly stated, this appears to affect only Windows versions of Explorer.

IE bug can lead to strange search If a plethora of pornography pop-up ads appear on your screen whenever you try to do a search, if misspelled URLs lead to you to strange corners of the Internet -- your computer may have been commandeered by a malicious bit of code planted by a greedy website owner. [wired.com]

vScan discontinued Mountain Ridge Dataworks states: "A number of factors have contributed to our decision to discontinue vScan (a virus detection utility). A decline in registrations and general interest in the software throughout the late summer and fall of 2001 along with the overall slowdown in the computer industry this year are two of the main factors. We will be offering technical support to existing registered users until March 31st, 2002. We will also do our best to issue pattern file updates throughout the remaining months although they may appear on an irregular basis at first. vScan's update mechanism is currently offline and will remain offline while our web site undergoes a redesign and relocation."

USB 2.0 hubs Orange Micro has announced shipment of the OrangeUSB 2.0 Hubs. The hub has 5 ports which will connect the new USB 2.0 high performance peripherals or the legacy 1.1 devices. [Note: USB 2.0 is not yet supported on the Mac.]